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Spain Punishes Officers for Body Misidentification

George’s Point of View

After 30 bodies were misidentified and sent to the wrong grieving families, General Vicente Navarro received a three year sentence; and Commander Jose Ramirez and Captain Miguel Saez received 18-month sentences.

Some of the bodies had to be exhumed so that the misidentification could be verified.

Sixty-two soldiers died in the Yak-42 crash in Turkey on May 26, 2003. Imagine how the families felt. First they have to suffer the deaths. Then almost half of the victims were misidentified. And remember to the families, these weren’t random victims. They were husbands and sons.

Imagine how the families felt when they had to dig up their husbands and sons and have the remains crosschecked with dental records and DNA samples. It probably wasn’t limted to 30, either; they probably exhumed all the victims except for whichever ones might have been visually recognizable by family members.

One wonders if the buck stopped in the right place. Was the decision not to perform DNA/Dental verification really made by General Vicente Navarro or was it a decision that was passed down to him from defence minister Federico Trillo? Isn’t there a public policy of aviation procedure in cases such as this? My question is not whether the sentence is just, but whether the right individual was sentenced.

Carelessness of this profundity goes beyond cruelty.

If I were a Spanish lawyer or on the Ministerio de Fomento, Civil Aviation, I’d be going through policies with a fine toothed comb. I’d love to hear from Madrid to find out just exactly what they’ve done in the past three years to prevent this kind of inhuman treatment in the future.

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    Bad Day for Air Europa Flaps


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Galen Burrows

    What: Air Europa Boeing 737-800 en route from Madrid,SP to Lanzarote,CI
    Where: Lanzarote
    When: Jun 16th 2011
    Why: On approach to Lanzarote, the plane developed flap problems. The crew responded by entering a holding pattern, and shortly afterward landed with flaps up. Touchdown was lower and at a higher speed but a safe landing.

    What: Air Europa Boeing 737-800 en route from Lanzarote,CI to Bilbao,SP
    Where: Bilbao
    When: Jun 16th 2011
    Why: The same plane was on approach to Bilbao and suffered a reoccurrence of the flap problem.

    The pilots diverted to Madrid. Touchdown was lower and at a higher speed but a safe landing.

    In George’s Opinion
    One can not help but wonder what was going on behind the scenes here–if they had an attempted-but-failed flap repair in maintenance, or if someone had a boneheaded thought process of flying a disabled plane.

    We do not have a record here that this was a ferry flight, so whether or not there were commercial passengers aboard, someone else will have to enlighten us.

    Hopefully the flaps problem will be repaired rather than continuing to subject the crew to a less-than-airworthy plane. Good on you to the flight crew of EC-III

    .

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    Back in Court over Mangalore Ruling

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    Spanair Update

    Update
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    The faulty valve that prevented the first attempt at takeoff was disconnected rather than repaired. Planes are allowed to fly for up to 10 days with the system involved disconnected.

    Newlywed Brazilian Ronaldo Gomes Silva, 25, and his Spanish wife Yanina Celisdibowsky had been living in the UK for three years. a month ago in Sao Paolo, Brazil, they got married; They had just gotten on a plane to visit the Canary Islands, where Yanina was going to meet her in laws for the first time.

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    • Where: Madrid airport Terminal Four
    • When: Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008 2:45pm
    • Who: Carrying 166 passengers and nine crew, at the time of this writing, the number of fatalities had mounted to 154 people.
    • Why: The jet swerved off the runway and caught fire during takeoff. Spanish Comisión de Investigación de Accidentes e Incidentes de Aviación Civil (CIAIAC) is investigating
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    Buffalo: Haunting Questions

    George’s Point of View

    When it is all over, after the crash, after the investigation, after the finger-pointing, after all the intangible blame has been assigned to corporeal cause, and the reproachable have been reproached, it is important to remember that one of the objectives of a crash investigation is prevention.

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